John C. Gray - father, John L. Gray/Lydia Carleton

[http://books.google.com/books?output=text&id=t-lYAAAAMAAJ&dq=john+c.+gray+dresden+lincoln+county%2C+maine&jtp=697

JOHN C. GRAY.

John Carleton Gray was born at Dresden, Lincoln county, Maine, February 2, 1837, being the fourth of nine children born to Hon. John L, and Lydia (Carleton) Gray, four sons and five daughters. Judge Gray is the only remaining son. Two of the boys died while yet young; and the third at the age of forty-two years, after having followed the sea twentvfive years, nearly twenty of which he was master of a good ship. In 1877. Captain Gray was presented by the citizens of Honolulu with a silver service for carrying to them the official notice of the adoption of the reciprocity treaty between the United States and the Sandwich Islands.

Judge Gray's ancestors came from England and the north of Ireland, and in the Revolutionary War were found in both armies, as some of them held important positions in the British service before the struggle began. Both his parents were natives of Maine, where his mother died in 1874 at the age of sixty-seven years, and his father in 1897, at the age of ninety years. His sisters are all living.

The family moved from Dresden to China, Maine, when our subject was but three years of age. He lived upon a farm until he *i: eighteen years old, when he bought the remainder of his minority and started out in life for himself. He taught school to get the means to fit himself for college, which he entered in 1859, at Waterville, Maine, then known as Watcrville, now as Colby University, where he remained but two years. He then entered the law office of Hon. A. Libbey at Augusta. There he remained until admitted to practice in the highest court of that State. His admission was on the 16th of June, 1863, and on the next day he started for California, arriving in this State July 19, of the same year. He went to Sacramento, where he found work for a year and a half as night clerk at the What Cheer hotel. On the first of January, 1865. he removed to Butte county, and taught school for the next seven years, five of which were in Oroville, as principal of the grammar school, after which and about the first of June, 1872, he opened a law office in Oroville, at which place he has ever since resided.

The next year, 1873, he was elected a member of the assembly and took his seat in the legislature the following December. The sessions were then four months long, and a great amount of important business was transacted that winter. The codes had become the law of this State on the first of January, 1873, and the bench and bar had seen and tested them nearly a year, and the number of amendments that were presented to the legislature at that session were nearly as large and voluminous as the codes themselves. The judiciary committee of the assembly, of which Judge Gray was a member, was presided over by Judge Williams, of El Dorado county, and contained such men as Hon. John F. Swift, Hon. M. M. Estee, Hon. J. F. Cowdery, and many others, of equal learning and fame. Before it, almost nightly, was the code commission, at the head of which was Hon. Creed I laymond, then in his best years, and leading lawyers from every part of the state, who did not take kindly to the innovations made by the code in their forms of pleading and practice. The sessions of that committee ran into the morning hours, and there were six of them each week, and the work there done, familiarized each member with the codes to that extent that each had a far better knowledge of it than other lawyers in the State. Each member went home equipped to take a leading part in the litigation of his own bar. From his school of law Judge Gray returned to Oroville, and in a very short time took a commanding place in the profession.

In 1874, at the earnest request of the leading citizens of Oroville, he became part owner and editor of the Oroville Mercury, which he managed in connection with his law business, although as he often said, his editorial work had to be done at night, and on Sunday. The paper under his management soon took the first rank in the county, and maintained it as long as he was at its head. In 1878, he disposed of his interest in it, and devoted his whole attention to his legal business, which was rapidly increasing and would not permit of his giving his attention to other matters, as can be seen by a reference to the Supreme Court reports. He also was largely engaged in procuring government titles to agricultural and mineral lands, and some of the arguments made by him before the commissioner of the general land office, and also before the secretary of the interior, were among the best received by those officers, and have been used by others in later considered cases.

He received the nomination of the Republican party for the office ot district attorney in 1884, and after a hot contest was elected for a term of two years, and was re-elected by a much larger majority, but refused to run for a third term. It was during his term of office that some seven criminals, forming one of the worst bands of outlaws in the state, were sent to prison for terms varying from one to sixty years, thus ridding Oroville of a menace that had hung over it for years.

In 1890, he received the nomination of his party for the office of Superior Judge, a place then held by Judge P. O. Hundley, one of the most popular men in the northern part of the State, and who was his opponent in the contest, but which resulted in the election of Judge Gray by a large majority. His duties on the bench, as is the case with all judges of interior counties, where farming, mining, fruit-raising, lumbering and other interests are carried on, embraced a wide field and gave full play to a brain full of common sense. That his administration of affairs gave satisfaction was evidenced by the fact that when he came up in 1896 for re-election he received the largest majority ever given to a candidate in Butte county. He is now near the close of his ninth year on the bench, and is regarded as a man of more than average abilities for the place. Fairness and honesty of purpose is accorded him on all sides, and by all parties, who have had business in the courts before him.

His fraternal life began with his entrance into college, where he joined the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. He has ever since been a devoted member of it, often inviting to his home such young men as he learned belonged to the organization. He also became a Mason, and advanced as far as the order of the Knights Templar, in each of the several divisions of which he became the presiding officer, places which he filled with ability. He is also an Odd Fellow, being an encampment member. As age creeps on, he is little inclined to visit the lodges, claiming that in his day he did his full duty, and younger men should be given the places of honor.

Having worked upon the farm in early life, it was not unnatural for the Judge in after years to turn his attention to the farm in this State, where the land yields its choicest returns, with but a tithe of the labor required of the farmer in the harsh and inhospitable climate of Maine. Accordingly, we find him turning his attention to fruit-raising as early as 1886. being the pioneer in that business in his part of the county. He cleared the land of the dense forests, planted trees, and now has one of the "show" places of this region, an orchard of some 4.000 peach trees, fifty acres of White Adriatic figs, and one hundred acres planted to olives, all in bearing and yielding bountiful harvests. He has extensive pickling works. the crop reaching a number of thousands of gallons, while his extensive oil machinery, as good as can be found in America, annually turns out hundreds of gallons of pure, sweet, delicious olive oil. Here he spends a portion of his time when not occupied with official duties.

On the 6th day of October. 1869. he was married to Miss Bella R. Clark, who had been one of his pupils, and for a time had been one of the teachers in the school of which he was principal. Of this marriage, there were three children, one son and two daughters, the eldest of whom, Helen, died in infancy. The son. Carleton Gray, lives in Oroville. and is following his father's profession, while the youngest. Miss Ida B. Gray, is the official reporter for his court.

His married life was a happy one, for, though his wife was for manv years in poor health, she yet possessed a sweet, lovable disposition, and the rare good judgment almost always found among the women of Scotch parentage. Their home was their paradise. Her death took place on the 14th of November, 1897, in San Francisco, where she had gone to attend the wedding of her son.

In person. Judge Gray is six feet tall, weighs about two hundred and twenty, is of Porid complexion, and of a genial, happy disposition.